idated' deputy from Paris, perhaps as a Tresorier-General,
occupying one of the large number (I think there are eighty in all) of
these lucrative posts, which it has been the custom of successive
administrations under the Third Republic to distribute among their
friends and supporters on retiring from power, as in England premiers,
in like circumstances, distribute peerages and baronetcies and accolades
of knighthood, one special difference between the two systems being that
the rewards of political service bestowed in England not only entail no
expense upon the taxpayers, but actually, I believe, bring a certain
amount in the way of fees into the Treasury, whereas in France such
rewards mean a steady increase of the public outlay.

As the late parliament on the very last day of its existence adopted a
plan proposed by M. Doumer himself for re-organising the system of
_Tresoriers-Generaux_, and making these officers regular members of the
staff of the Finance Ministry with fixed salaries, my friend in the
Aisne thinks it likely enough that one of these posts may fill the
eventual perspective of M. Doumer's political career.

Meanwhile the defeated candidate for Laon has been comfortably lodged,
at the public cost, in the Legislative Palace, as Secretary of the
President of the Chamber, M. Floquet being President, and receives a
salary of 15,000 francs, with perquisites and other advantages.

We do this sort of thing occasionally in the United States, for the
benefit of defeated political candidates. But in one important respect
the professional politician in France is better off than the
professional politician in America. Our pension list is by far the
largest in the world, but we do not offer any prospect of a pension to
civil servants.

Nor have we so many paid legislative berths in which to lodge our
professional politicians. The parliamentary business of the sixty
millions of people who now inhabit the United States is done by
eighty-four senators and 330 representatives, who receive something over
$2,000,000 a year. The parliamentary business of less than forty
millions of people inhabiting France is supposed to require the services
of 300 senators and 578 deputies, who receive for doing it 11,937,940
francs, or, in round numbers, about $2,587,560. Whether the 878 French
legislators really earn half a million of dollars more by their annual
labours than do the 414 American legislators is a question which I leav